Financial advisors earn the majority of their new business from referrals—about 80% reported so in a recent internal Raymond James survey—so why should you focus your valuable time on building a brand and online presence? Just as you wouldn't hire someone to fix your car without first doing some research, clients are increasingly doing the same for their advisor.
When a potential client refers you, the first thing they will do is look you up online. What they find may determine whether they ever pick up the phone to call you.
Digital marketing is about visibility and building a brand that builds trust and presents you as a trusted source of information before a prospect walks in the door. While this may seem like a huge undertaking, a crawl, walk, run approach can help get you off the starting line.
Identify your audience
From the start, it's important to understand your audience and their preferences so you know what kind of content to share and where.
A helpful way to do this is by imagining a person—for example, a first-generation business owner with a young family. The business owner is likely short on time and has concerns about her personal and professional finances, such as college planning, business growth (or even succession planning), and retirement planning.
If a person feels too abstract, just consider your main customers. Who are they? What are their interests? What social media channels do they use? If you don't already know, ask them. You can even add a short questionnaire to your onboarding process to collect this valuable information.
Start crawling
As a consultant, you probably don't have a lot of time to devote to content creation. That's okay—this is the perfect place to apply the crawl-walk-run approach.
Between LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, X, Instagram, TikTok, and many others, trying to be everywhere at once isn't realistic, especially at first, so start small.
Consider your website the foundation of your digital presence, then identify a social media channel or two for posting content that originates from your website – ideally the ones where your prospects and customers are most active. LinkedIn, which is a great place for brand building, is the most popular channel among Raymond James advisors, followed by Facebook Business.
At this stage, focus on becoming a content curator. Start by gathering articles, images or videos that you think your audience will find useful or interesting. Share content with your followers and attach short captions that personalize it – this can be an important lead, stating why you're sharing it or even noting which of your audience it's most relevant to.
Content must not be related to markets. It could be lifestyle articles, educational content, or anything that speaks to the life stage or interests of the reader – think “10 Best Places to Retire” for your near-retirement clients or “How to Teach your children financial knowledge” for your clients with young families.
Take a walk
Once you're comfortable working with one or two channels, you're ready to move on and try more platforms.
Now it's time to get personal. Once you're able to post curated content, take things a step further by adding original and personal content to the mix. It doesn't have to be much: You can share two sentences about a book you just read or a photo from a community event, or cheer on your favorite sports team before a big game.
Think about things you're already doing (like reading or going to baseball games) and take an extra moment to document and share them with your followers. This will help you maintain a consistent posting schedule and go a long way toward building a unique brand by showing clients and prospects who you are.
If you're up for it, run
This stage may not be suitable for everyone and perhaps your business is thriving in the crawling or walking stage. But to take it to the next level, become a content creator. If it's a route you want to take, you can create your own content to share on social media. Start a blog on your website, record a video, host a webinar or even start a podcast and post it on Spotify. The types of content you create are up to you, and if you choose something you enjoy, it becomes easier to commit to doing it regularly.
Alternatively, consider delegating this task to people on your team who may have a passion for social media or content creation. What is most important at this stage is to just get started and not get hung up on perfection. Consider setting up a dedicated space in your office with a nice background and lighting to remove any obstacles to sitting down and hitting the record.
Build on Momentum
One rule of social media: Consistency trumps frequency. Building a relationship with your followers requires you to be present and active on a regular basis. Whether you post once a day or once a month, your audience needs to know when to anticipate your content so you can become a regular voice in their feed. Most advisors we talk to post one to two times a week.
Measuring success on social media can be tricky. While clicks and views are exciting to see, don't lose sight of your objective—whether it's educating your customers, being a thought leader, or simply having prospects feel like they know you when they show up for that first meeting. If your digital footprint achieves this, it's a win.
Maggie Kokemuller is senior vice president, Marketing Services at Raymond James.